On 08 and 09 October 2019, EATC organised the second conference on the EATC operations manual and on cross parachuting.
For two days, 40 experts from the seven member nations met at Eindhoven airbase and exchanged ideas on the operations manual. During the introduction, Brigadier-General Agresti, Deputy Commander EATC, stressed that “what is at stake are future combined operations, our air mobility effectiveness and efficiency. This is EATC’s mission but also your mission, and finally it is our mission all together”.
The conference tackled in particular daily operations or operations to the various military theatre, such as crew operating procedures, flight duty rules, command and control of missions, etc... Moreover they approached crew training requirements for the multinational MRTT unit and the French-German C130J unit. Attention was also turned to interoperability issues in the cross parachuting domain.
The operations manual is a living document. The first edition of the EATC air operations regulations for instance were published in 2015. Over the years, member nations implemented most of these regulations. This implementation entailed the incorporation of national annexes addressing nation specific and commonly not harmonized procedures and regulations. The conference discussed the scope of these annexes with the aim of further reducing the national differences such allowing and in particular the differences that may hamper the smoothening of day to day operations for the above mentioned multinational units and building the basis for truly combined operations in the future.
This second conference on the operations manual was a great success. The representatives welcomed the great benefit of this a unique occasion to share ideas on operational and training procedures or cross-parachuting.
(...) to come together here at EATC for two days, discussion and exchange of views
will increase mutual understanding and allow to find the best common solution satisfying each party.
Brigadier-General Agresti, Deputy Commander EATC